How would you convert small elementals. [AoW Spoilers]

[DanyBallon]

Hi there, I'm running Age of Worms under 5e rules. I'm still into Whispering Cairns, and so far I've been able to adapt monsters or replace them by something comparable. But I'm still trying to figure out how to downgrade the elementals from the Monster Manual from large to small and trying to get them comparable to a 3,5e CR 2 creature. I know that instead of d10 for large creatures, small creatures get d6, but how much HD should they get? And should I give them full resistance as their large counterpart?

[RealCheese]

Hi there, I'm running Age of Worms under 5e rules. I'm still into Whispering Cairns, and so far I've been able to adapt monsters or replace them by something comparable. But I'm still trying to figure out how to downgrade the elementals from the Monster Manual from large to small and trying to get them comparable to a 3,5e CR 2 creature. I know that instead of d10 for large creatures, small creatures get d6, but how much HD should they get? And should I give them full resistance as their large counterpart?

I needed some lower CR elementals recently and used the Magmin from the MM as well as water and earth versions, changing around a few stats and attacks but keeping it comparable.
If you need a CR2 elemental perhaps do the same with the Azer or the Fire Snake (under Salamander) also both in the MM?

[Bayonet Priest]

Hi there, I'm running Age of Worms under 5e rules. I'm still into Whispering Cairns, and so far I've been able to adapt monsters or replace them by something comparable. But I'm still trying to figure out how to downgrade the elementals from the Monster Manual from large to small and trying to get them comparable to a 3,5e CR 2 creature. I know that instead of d10 for large creatures, small creatures get d6, but how much HD should they get? And should I give them full resistance as their large counterpart?

Running Age of Worms myself. For the water elemental I just came up with some stats that felt CR1 to me. Less HP than a Dire Wolf but resistance to physical damage. An appropriately damaging attack. That sort of thing. Really, I just half-assed it but it worked well enough. Can't wait for the DMG though. I've been hearing good stuff about the monster design guidelines and that should make for much better conversions.

So my only advice is not to sweat it so much. Pick a monster of appropriate CR for the fight, add Elemental features and immunities. Reduce HP but give it damage resistance. Give it the same attack as the full elemental just with low CR damage and attack bonus. I'd show my piddly notes for the water elemental but I lost them.

[DanyBallon]

Running Age of Worms myself. For the water elemental I just came up with some stats that felt CR1 to me. Less HP than a Dire Wolf but resistance to physical damage. An appropriately damaging attack. That sort of thing. Really, I just half-assed it but it worked well enough. Can't wait for the DMG though. I've been hearing good stuff about the monster design guidelines and that should make for much better conversions.

So my only advice is not to sweat it so much. Pick a monster of appropriate CR for the fight, add Elemental features and immunities. Reduce HP but give it damage resistance. Give it the same attack as the full elemental just with low CR damage and attack bonus. I'd show my piddly notes for the water elemental but I lost them.

Thanks, I'll do this and post what I've come up with over here.

On an other topic, how far are your players through AoW? Had any difficulties with some traps, or encounters that I should be aware?

[Bayonet Priest]

Thanks, I'll do this and post what I've come up with over here.

On an other topic, how far are your players through AoW? Had any difficulties with some traps, or encounters that I should be aware?

The underwater ghoul ate one of the PCs because he went down alone. No real trap trouble to speak of. All they have left in the Whispering Cairn is the final room and the room past the brown mold. Right now they're back in town tracking down the Land family skeletons. Things are going pretty good right now. I'm busy uploading tokens for monsters and NPCs in Three Faces of Evil and generally figuring out how I'm going to run that. I'm thinking about reducing the numbers there a little bit. Numbers in 5e are pretty dangerous and my group isn't exactly large. (3-4 PCs) They killed Momma Owlbear in a single round, 3 well placed arrows. That can be a nasty encounter though if rolls go bad. Owlbears have some serious damage capability.

[DanyBallon]

The underwater ghoul ate one of the PCs because he went down alone. No real trap trouble to speak of. All they have left in the Whispering Cairn is the final room and the room past the brown mold. Right now they're back in town tracking down the Land family skeletons. Things are going pretty good right now. I'm busy uploading tokens for monsters and NPCs in Three Faces of Evil and generally figuring out how I'm going to run that. I'm thinking about reducing the numbers there a little bit. Numbers in 5e are pretty dangerous and my group isn't exactly large. (3-4 PCs) They killed Momma Owlbear in a single round, 3 well placed arrows. That can be a nasty encounter though if rolls go bad. Owlbears have some serious damage capability.

Thanks for the input, we only had one session so far (we meet only a single night every 2-3 weeks) and that session ended just in front of the archway covered in web. I have a large group (6 player +1 NPC as 3 players are brand new to RPG) so I put 4 wolves instead of 3 and the fight went pretty well, the NPC almost passed away, but it was mostly because he sacrificed himself by placing himself within 5 feet of the pack (wolf pack ability is quite nasty, especially I rolled at least one dice over 15 for the wolves on each advantage roll!!!)

[DanyBallon]

***Edited to increase hp, so it's comparable to other CR2 monsters***

Earth Elemental, small
small elemental, neutral

Armor Class 15 (natural)
Hit Point 30 (4d6+12)
Speed 30ft., burrow 30ft.

STR 16 (+3) DEX 8 (-1) CON 16 (+3) INT 5 (-3) WIS 10 (+0) CHA 5 (-3)

Damage Vulnerabilities sonic (I just can get use to the new names...)
Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from non-magical weapons
Damage Immunities poison
Condition Immunities exhaustion, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned, unconscious
Senses darkvision 60ft., tremorsense 60ft., passive Perception 10
Language Terran
Challenge 2 (450 xp)

Earth Glide.
Siege Monster.

Actions
Multiattack. The elemental makes two slam attacks.
Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d6+3) bludgeoning damage.




Water Elemental, small
small elemental, neutral

Armor Class 13 (natural)
Hit Point 26 (4d6+8)
Speed 30ft., swim 90ft.

STR 14 (+2) DEX 12 (+1) CON 12 (+2) INT 5 (-3) WIS 10 (+0) CHA 8 (-1)

Damage Resistances acid, bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from non-magical weapons
Damage Immunities poison
Condition Immunities exhaustion, grappled, paralyzed, petrified, poisoned, prone, restrained, unconscious
Senses darkvision 60ft., passive Perception 10
Language Aquan
Challenge 2 (450 xp)

Water Form.
Freeze.

Actions
Multiattack. The elemental makes two slam attacks.
Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d6+2) bludgeoning damage.
Whelm (Recharge 6). It can grapple only a single medium or smaller creature.

[Bayonet Priest]

Those look pretty good, similar to what I had but more complete. I'd drop the CR down to 1 though. Those really don't seem like CR 2 to me. CR 2 would be quite a bit tougher. You have a large group so they could probably handle it but I've been going a bit easy on my group so they get used to the game.

[DanyBallon]

Those look pretty good, similar to what I had but more complete. I'd drop the CR down to 1 though. Those really don't seem like CR 2 to me. CR 2 would be quite a bit tougher. You have a large group so they could probably handle it but I've been going a bit easy on my group so they get used to the game.

Thanks for the input.
I feared they were more like CR3 due to the damage resistance. I'll let them fight it as is, and adjust CR afterward on on well the fight went.

[Bayonet Priest]

Nah, look at the damage resistance and the HP. That Earth Elemental has 15 HP and damage resistance. That's actually weaker than straight 30 HP because damage resistance doesn't apply to fire or force or whatever type damage. A Dire Wolf is CR1 with 37 HP, 14 AC, a powerful attack that can trip, and pack bonuses.

This guy is actually a little weak for CR 1. I'd still give him CR 1 but if you want CR 2 you need to at least give him like 25 HP.

This guy here is an actual CR2 from the DMBasic.

Grick
Medium monstrosity, neutral
Armor Class 14 (natural armor)
Hit Points 27 (6d8)
Speed 30 ft., climb 30 ft.
STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
14 (+2) 14 (+2) 11 (+0) 3 (−4) 14 (+2) 5 (−3)
Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing
damage from nonmagical weapons
Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 12
Languages —
Challenge 2 (450 XP)
Stone Camouflage. The grick has advantage on Dexterity
(Stealth) checks made to hide in rocky terrain.
Actions
Multiattack. The grick makes one attack with its tentacles. If
that attack hits, the grick can make one beak attack against the
same target.
Tentacles. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one
target. Hit: 9 (2d6 + 2) slashing damage.
Beak. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target.
Hit: 5 (1d6 + 2) piercing damage.

Offensively he's about equal. Your guy hits more often and does more damage on average. But this guy is much harder to take down with 27 HP and damage resistance. His AC is slightly less but that HP will make a big difference when he gets ganged up on. Btw, this Grick went down like a chump to 4 second level PCs so he isn't all that tough himself.

[DanyBallon]

Ok, good to know, I think I'll double the hit points then in order to get that CR2 elemental I'm looking for.

An other out of topic question; how do you manage treasure? 3.X/PF assume a lot of gold, gem and magic items every level, but 5e is less dependent on wealth to keep the players competitive. So far, my players, somehow, manage to just ignore searching for loot, but at some point I believe that the more experimented players, will realised that they missed something.

[RealCheese]

Ok, good to know, I think I'll double the hit points then in order to get that CR2 elemental I'm looking for.

An other out of topic question; how do you manage treasure? 3.X/PF assume a lot of gold, gem and magic items every level, but 5e is less dependent on wealth to keep the players competitive. So far, my players, somehow, manage to just ignore searching for loot, but at some point I believe that the more experimented players, will realised that they missed something.

My group just hit lvl 3 last session and so far I've only been giving out loot as rewards from people they help.
They have 3 magic items (one is a weapon 2 are of the minor wondrous items variety) They have 430ish gold each and they are almost done with a job that'll net them another 100 gold each as well as two more magic weapons.
The same employer has one last job for them and the reward will be 200 gold and a wand.
I expect them to be about a third, maybe even halfway, through level 3 by the time they finish his last mission.

Note: This is just how I've done it, I have no idea if this is balanced, but if their wealth and magic items seem unbalanced, I will balance the encounters for what they have.

[Bayonet Priest]

I've cut loot by a lot. I give out about half the monetary wealth assumed by the module. I've also cut out most magic items. It's Eberron so I've decided that uncommon level magic items are available for purchase and higher level stuff can be got with the right connections. But I'm still handing out less than 3.5 assumed. So far, about 75% of the way through the module, they have a single +1 Shortsword and a Ring of Featherfall. Bunch of healing potions though. Filge is gonna have some potions and scrolls they can take. So far they've probably found about 300GP total worth of monetary treasure. They're gonna sell the owlbear cub next session, I've cut that to 800GP from 3000. I'll probably add in a little more treasure at the end of the tomb to compensate for that reduction. I've always felt that it was odd that plundering this ancient tomb gets you less than looting the bodies of the people who died plundering it and selling an owlbear cub.

I'm also dropping those 19 ability score items from the game. I don't like them and with magic items available for purchase they are far too powerful.


I may adjust my loot handout later based on the DMG and my own experiences in the AP.